


every card is wild

by smilebackwards



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-19 04:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14866703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: Ingram has a fading black eye and what looks like a broken hand, poorly wrapped. And John’s seen the travesty masquerading as his left hook. “Are you in the market for a bodyguard?” John asks.Or: The AU where Nathan lives and recruits Reese to help him with the irrelevants





	every card is wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkingtothesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/gifts).



Drinking in an alleyway is supposed to be a solitary activity. John doesn’t understand why other people don’t respect this worldview. Not one, not two, but _three_ dark-suited men have decided to stand in the lip of the alleyway that John already claimed for himself and his Jack Daniel’s.

He’s deciding whether to make an issue of it—probably not, getting up isn’t something he particularly feels like doing—when two of the men grab a passerby and drag him into the alley too. John blinks slowly. Then the suits punch the passerby in the stomach and John shoves to his feet. 

Before John can intervene, yet another man, because why not make it a party at this point, barrels in off the street and swings a woefully terrible punch at one of the suits.

It’s not even afternoon and John’s entire day is already shot. He ends the fight quickly and decisively. Punch to the larynx for Suit 1. Snapped humerus for Suit 2. The passerby wisely flees at this point and John magnanimously allows Suit 3 to do the same, in the opposite direction, dragging his injured friends along in his wake. 

“Thank you,” says the last man left, the would-be rescuer, pushing bangs out of his eyes and pinning John with a considering look. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a job?”

He looks familiar now that John has a chance to properly scrutinize him. Blond haired and broad featured, with a slightly sardonic tilt to his mouth. It only takes John a few seconds to place the man’s face. Nathan Ingram. Founder of IFT. Tech billionaire. John’s read at least half a dozen feature articles on the man, although in recent years they’ve petered out, replaced with the occasional _What Ever Happened to Nathan Ingram?_

John has the feeling he’s about to find out. 

-

The library Ingram leads John to is cool and dim, lit only by pale hanging lamps and the glowing blue screen of a laptop open on a table at the center of the room. It’s also deserted. John doubts anyone else works here.

Ingram has a fading black eye and what looks like a broken hand, poorly wrapped. And John’s seen the travesty masquerading as his left hook. “Are you in the market for a bodyguard?” John asks.

“Not for myself, no,” Ingram says, with a joyless smile. 

He nods his head toward a corkboard with pictures tacked to it haphazardly. It looks like something that belongs in a college dorm. Nathan Ingram ought to have some kind of 3D SmartBoard, John thinks. Even the CIA, with their two-hard-copies-of-everything paranoia, had graduated to whiteboards and tablets before John got burned.

John looks at the pictures. Men and women of all ages, portraits and drivers license photos, usually smiling. One of them is the man who was pulled into the alley. “Who are they?”

“People,” Ingram says. “Just ordinary people. They’re people who’re going to be hurt or who’re going to hurt someone else.”

“How do you know?” John asks, but somehow he thinks he already has part of the answer. The intel he and Kara got in the past few years wasn’t pieces and guesswork, it was precise, predictive.

“There’s a Machine,” Ingram says. “It sees everything. Emails, phone calls, surveillance video. It reports large-scale threats to government agencies, but there’s another protocol, a contingency, that sorts out threats to individuals.” He shows John his cell phone. There’s an SMS message with a number: XXX-XX-XXXX. “That’s all we get. A social. What I’m asking is, will you help me help them?” 

John’s rated hazard pay in three different countries without making anything close to the stipend Ingram quotes him. It’s CEO salary. It’s lottery winnings. It is, very obviously, desperation.

John looks at the headshots on the corkboard. “How many have you lost?” he asks.

Vitality visibly drains from Ingram’s face. “Twenty,” he says. “Twenty people.”

“How many have you saved?”

“Eight.”

It’s better than none, John thinks. Still, with his added skillset, they can do better than a 30% success rate. 

“You need a more covert system for getting the numbers,” John says. The contingency protocol clearly isn’t government approved or they wouldn’t be operating out of an abandoned library with zero resources. Ingram isn’t even using a burner phone. If anyone ever notices the protocol, it’ll be easily traced back to him. “Something encoded. With a more dispersed delivery system. It shouldn’t come to you directly.” John learned hundreds of cyphers in the CIA but of course the government knows all those too. They need something new.

Ingram nods. “I’ll think of something. Does that mean you’ll help?”

John supposes it does.

-

John returns to the library after saving a middle school teacher who, through a series of almost comedic mishaps, had managed to run afoul of the mob, to find Nathan holding a laptop, screen facing away, over an old copy of the yellow pages. John pulls up short.

“I’ve determined a new system for getting the numbers,” Nathan says. “We’ll have the Machine call us with numbers for a line and digit on this page. Twelve lines down, the ninth digit is five for example. So eighteen numbers will translate into the nine number social.” He taps the laptop webcam. “I’m letting the Machine see all the options it has to work with.”

“That’s good,” John says. A variation on an Ottendorf cipher where only he and Nathan have access to the key. 

“And we’ll get the numbers sent through different phones,” Nathan adds, nodding toward the other end of the room. He’s lined up six phones on the window ledge, like they’re going to be holding a telethon. Two are old, rotary dial models, eggshell white casings yellowing from age. The other four are identical modern push buttons that look like they’ve been rescued at auction. 

“Sasha Meisner should be safe now. Do we have any new numbers?” John asks.

Nathan closes the laptop and takes Sasha’s picture down from the corkboard. “Not yet. Let’s go have dinner.”

The whole ‘good work, let’s celebrate and talk about things’ angle that Nathan’s introduced John to has taken some getting used to. The reward John and Kara typically got from Agent Snow after a mission well done was a critical evaluation of what could have gone better, new clips of ammo, and the next assignment. Nathan, who’d insisted John call him by his first name, takes John out for steak and whiskey. Once, he took John to a Yankees game. He’d rooted for the away team—Houston—but then Nathan’s from Texas.

That’s the other thing. Nathan _talks._ He talks about himself and his son and his old company and his time at MIT, and he leaves space for John to speak, but he doesn’t force him. Frankly, it’s the most effective interrogation technique John’s ever run up against. John’s told Nathan about his parents and about Kuwait, about simple preferences like one sugar in his coffee and how he prefers a SIG-Sauer over an MP-7.

Every time John offers Nathan any crumb of personal detail, Nathan lights up like Times Square. John thinks they’re friends. It’s...nice. John likes Nathan, and he prefers him the way he is now, cheerful and buoyed up, bearing only superficial resemblance to the beaten-down man John first met, hope eroding after so many failed attempts to save people.

Before, Nathan had ice, oxycodone, and a six-shot revolver. Now he has John. And together they have a 100% success rate. 

All things considered, it’s the best job John’s ever had.

-

[!]locate */contingency/log  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
XXX-XX-XXXX  
…

-

The phone closest to Nathan’s elbow rings. It sounds more shrill than usual, the space between rings too short. Insistent.

A moment later, the ancient fax machine they use as a side table makes a high-pitched wailing noise and starts printing something. John goes to retrieve the paper as Nathan answers the phone.

**15-9    3-7   6-1    20-5    8-10   42-6    18-2    5-2    31-4**

Nathan frowns and puts the phone back on its cradle. John hands him the fax. 

Nathan shakes his head. “That’s the same message I got over the phone. I don’t know why the Machine would suddenly decide to introduce redundancy.” He picks his way through the phone book, translating.

Nathan stares at the number he’s written down. “That can’t be right,” he mutters. “That’s…” He opens the database and enters the number. John watches a screen of code roll by and then a picture of a man with slightly pinched, bird-like features appears, glasses perched on his nose.

Nathan puts his face in his hands.

“Who is it?” John asks, even though he can read ‘Harold Finch’ perfectly clear off the screen. The name isn’t what he means.

Nathan takes a deep, steadying breath and raises his eyes. “Harold,” he says. “Harold built the Machine.”

Well, John thinks, that explains a few things. He remembers the first week he’d started working the numbers, how Nathan had grinned when John walked into the library. “What?” John asked. People didn’t usually smile so readily at him.

Nathan turned his laptop so John could see the screen. “It likes you,” he said, nonsensical.

All John could see was lines of dense, scrolling code. 

“The Machine gave you a designation,” Nathan explained, tapping the screen over the words PRIMARY_ASSET.

John’s eye for detail was trained with soft targets and physical vulnerabilities in mind, but he was always good at pattern recognition. AUX_ADMIN jumped out as he scanned down the code. He’d seen Nathan entering that as a username.

That was interesting, John had thought. Especially when compared to his own designation. If John was the primary asset where Nathan was only the auxiliary admin, it begged a certain question.

Now, John’s willing to bet, buried somewhere in the all the terabytes of the Machine’s memory, Harold Finch is designated PRIMARY_ADMIN.

“Someone must have found out,” Nathan says. “I can’t imagine any other reason someone would want to kill Harold.”

John has to state the obvious. “He could be the perpetrator.” 

Nathan shakes his head. “Harold would never intentionally hurt anyone,” he says with conviction. “He built the Machine to save people. Now he’s working on a sustainable farming initiative, analyzing crop yields and water conservation practices, that sort of thing.” 

There could be an angle there too if Finch is doing anything particularly groundbreaking, John supposes. Disrupting a major industry like agriculture is always sure to ruffle some feathers.

The Machine can’t pinpoint Finch’s current location. The latest footage it has is from a camera across from a subway station and then, between 22nd and 23rd Street, Finch disappears like a ghost.

Nathan looks fond. “Same old Harold. But I know where he’ll be. Come on.”

The office Finch works in is a polished, sky-high block of glass in Silicon Alley. The windows are dark; it’s almost eight at night. “You think he’ll still be here?” John asks, skeptical.

“Harold always did his best work without an audience,” Nathan says wryly.

The Machine helps them through the security checkpoint and in the elevator Nathan hits the button for the seventh floor. John’s surprised when Nathan leads them to an endless field of cubicles rather than a corner office. He can hear the faint clicking sound of typing.

“Harold?” Nathan calls out, which isn’t a great idea considering paid assassins might be close by. John tips his head at Nathan and puts a finger to his lips. Nathan winces and mouths _sorry._

A head pops up over one of the cubicle walls. “Nathan?” Finch says. He sounds surprised but pleased. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while.”

Nathan’s smile is more a grimace. “Harold,” he says. “You’re in danger.”

Finch blinks behind his round glasses. “Danger? What kind of danger?” He throws a suspicious look at John and John grins back.

“Not from John,” Nathan says, rolling his eyes. “John’s a friend. We’re working together on...a project.”

Something like hurt flickers across Finch’s face. Conversely, he says, “Good. I— I’m glad you found someone new to work with.”

John clears his throat. “If we could move this conversation elsewhere, that would be good.”

As if on cue, a man in a black tac vest rounds a corner and takes a shot at them. John fires two rounds back while Nathan grabs Finch and pulls him down behind his desk.

“Oh dear,” Finch says, peering dangerously around the corner. “Was that meant for me? But how on Earth did you kn—?” Realization breaks across Finch’s face as he looks at Nathan. “My God, you’re using it, aren’t you? The Machine?”

“Yes,” Nathan says baldly, not bothering to lie.

“Perhaps we could talk about this later?” John says, firing three more shots to open a window for them to move. He hosters his gun and takes Nathan by one arm and Finch by the other and drags them into the stairwell and down the stairs. 

There are a few pointed barbs thrown in the cab, but Nathan and Finch save the real knock-down-drag-out fight for when they’re all safely ensconced back in the library. John pulls up a chair.

“I can’t believe you built a back door! We agreed that we wouldn’t play God!” Finch yells at Nathan.

“You already built a god, Harold. What’s the difference in having it save a few more people?” Nathan shoots back. 

“The Machine belongs to the federal government now, Nathan. Do you know what they would do if they ever suspected what you’ve done?”

“Please, Harold,” Nathan scoffs. “The government barely even knows what the Machine can do. It’s not like we gave them a user manual.” He yanks open a drawer in the old library card catalog and pushes a stack of photos into Finch’s hands. “These are the people we’ve saved.”

Finch closes his mouth. He runs his thumb along the edges of the photos like a flip book. The stack is an inch deep by now. Monica Jacobs is on the top. 

John spent a lot of his life fighting the good fight for a nebulous greater good. He still believes it was important, that he might have saved hundreds of lives in one fell swoop on any given mission, but it never hit him as viscerally as seeing all the distinct faces of people he could help, even if it was only inch by inch, one by one.

“Are you at least being careful?” Finch asks wearily.

“As much as we can be,” Nathan says. “John does all the real heroics.” 

Convincing Nathan that he was better help to John in a support role had been a bit of a hard sell, but John had eventually persuaded him that having a face people recognized from Time magazine covers wasn’t an asset. 

Abruptly, Finch turns to John. John can’t read his expression. Finch looks him up and down, taking in John’s casual slacks and button-up, sleeves rolled to the elbows. He says, “Have you considered a suit?”


End file.
